In a special edition of The Daily Pulse, we look today at Denny Hastert's home-town papers. A lot of them are little publications, sometimes weekly, but it is interesting to see if they are covering the story, and if so, how. The conclusion? Hardly, and gently. If you know of any more papers in the ex-Speaker's (just give it time) district jump right in.
Daily Chronicle has nothing on the front page, nothing. There is a story about it, but you have to dig, and the headline is about Shimkus,
not Hastert. Dig all the way through the story to the fourth paragraph before Hastert is mentioned, even though the criticism quoted (by Sen. Durbin) is about "leadership," not just Shimkus:
Democratic Sen. Dick Durbin said Monday that GOP Rep. John Shimkus should resign as head of the House board that supervises congressional pages, due to his conduct in a scandal that led a Florida Republican to quit Congress. ...
"The fact of the matter is at the highest levels of the leadership in the House of Representatives they have known for months that something awful was happening," Durbin, the Senate's second-highest ranking Democrat, said Monday after an unrelated appearance at a Chicago high school. ...
Shimkus and Hastert, at a Capitol news conference, read separate statements declaring that they did not know until Friday about the most lurid messages Foley allegedly sent to interns in 2003. ...
But don't despair. They do write letters.
If we needed further confirmation of the deep and undeniable corruption at the heart of today's Republican Party, Friday's resignation of Rep. Mark Foley because of inappropriate sexual e-mails to a young congressional page should provide it. ...
Denny Hastert was taking care of it. And not really looking out for any constituents other than his sick and predatory colleague in Congress. So let's all get together and re-elect the man who looked the other way while he tried to figure out how to get a sexual predator in Congress off the hook.
TIM SCHULZ
DeKalb
The Courier News has an AP video link to Hastert. It also carried an AP story about Haster's "disgust" with Foley. I could not find an editorial page.
The Dixon Telegraph has two front page AP stories about Hastert. The first is about the Washington Time's demand that he resign. The second includes a timeline and Hastert's denial, though it does soft-pedal for Hastert, as the headline is "Hastert dispels claims he did not do enough," as if all concerns were alleviated by his self-serving denials. Nothing in the editorial pages.
The Kane County Chronicle has nothing on the front page about Hastert, though it does have a story entitled "Hundreds take stand against abortion." Also, no editorial page.
Of course, in the outer `burbs of Chicago and further environs, a lot of people read the Chicago papers, and the local papers are often only weekly sheets. So let's take a peek at the big boys, conservative and more conservative.
The Chicago Tribune is subscription only, so we can only peek at headlines, but the front page is just FULL of Hastert. There's Hastert brushes off critics, Hastert defended (I sure wish I could read that one), Republicans knocked off message (my personal favorite), A lesson for us all, and emails disgusting.
In The Chicago Sun Times there's a link to an AP video, but no story. If you dig to the news page there is more. I like GOP hopes page-gate doesn't cost party the best, because WE HAVE A GATE! It looks like it's just an AP story, but I love the headline.
At stake in the Rep. Mark Foley scandal may be the immediate future of the Republican Party.
GOP leaders are facing questions of a cover-up while Democrats across the country seize on the scandal. ...
Punting on Monday, White House spokesman Tony Snow told reporters: ''The House has to clean up the mess, to the extent there is a mess.''
House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) denounced instant messages Foley sent to pages as ''vile and repulsive'' and denied that House leaders had access to them.
However, Hastert and others, including Majority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) and Rep. Tom Reynolds (R-N.Y.), the chairman of the House campaign effort, for months had been aware of a questionable 2005 e-mail exchange between Foley and a Louisiana teen. ...
Privately, some Republicans concede that the party now is in even more danger of losing control of the House and a few fear the scandal could spill over to the Senate as well. ...
The Sun Times also has another AP story, Hastert defends role in Foley folly. "Folly" seems like sure understatement, soft-pedaling if I ever heard it. I like "Page-Gate" better.
Hastert said neither he nor other GOP leaders were aware until last Friday of far more lurid exchanges two years earlier between the Florida Republican and another page.
Hastert (R-Ill.) acknowledged that Foley's 2005 e-mail to a Louisiana boy seeking a photo raised a ''red flag'' with the Louisiana congressman who sponsored the page, but said his staff aides and Rep. John Shimkus, another Illinois Republican who chairs a board of House members who oversee the page program, did not know the contents. ...